by James Ryke
It was his daughter that concerned him. She took things like this so personally, as if everything was her fault. What sort of effect will this have on her? How will she take the news? She’ll probably pretend like it does not affect her, but who’s to say she won’t just bury the pain deep inside where it will fester for years to come. I just hope she can talk to me when the pain is too much to bear.
“Are you all right, Dad?” Jane asked. “You suddenly turned quiet.”
Isaac’s eyes focused again on his daughter. He sighed and smiled. “I’m fine.”
SIX
Day 1
It was morning, just after sunrise. Jacks was in the back of the restaurant, his back against the furthest wall. Rick had expected to see Jacks wearing a baseball cap and dark shades, but the man that nodded towards him had neither. Rick had to blink twice before he recognized his longtime friend. It was Jacks, but a version of him that Rick had never met before. He looked sickly and underfed; his usually proud, dark-skinned face was diminished. There were large circles under his eyes and a bad bruise along his neck.
“Jacks?”
The man stirred in his seat. “Do I look that bad?’
“You look like you just attended an over-ambitious fat camp.”
“Sit down.”
Rick obeyed. As he sat, the smell of two-day-old body odor greeted his nose.
Jacks put his hands up defensively. “Rick, first of all, I want you to know that I don’t have money to pay for any food—not for me, not for you.”
“Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way,” Rick said with little amusement. “I’ll pick up the tab, but don’t order more than you can eat. Gas is still over 10 dollars a gallon, and I had to drive two hours to get here.”
“I don’t need your charity, Rick.”
“Looks like you need somebody’s charity, Jacks. You’re a mess, and that bruise you got on the side of your neck is fresh. What happened to you? Is the government paying for this trip? Hell, they cut my pension in half, but what else have they been slashing? You still have medical insurance?”
“That’s not important.”
A waitress abruptly appeared, a half-full pot of coffee in her right hand. “What can I get for you, gentlemen?”
Rick and Jacks spoke at the same time.
“I don’t want anything.”
“We’ll take two of your breakfast specials.”
Rick’s voice persisted and eventually drowned out his friend. “We’ll take two breakfast specials, the one that’s advertised on your front door.”
“We’re out of bacon.”
“Then we’ll have sausage.”
“We’re out of sausage.”
“Then, we’ll take ham.”
“How do you want the eggs?”
Rick clenched his teeth. He was beginning to lose patience with this whole situation. “Just like the picture, scrambled. With two cups of orange juice.”
“We’re out of orange—”
“Then bring us water,” Rick said. He folded his large forearms across his body, flexing them until his shirt went taut.
The waitress seemed to get the hint and nervously stumbled away. “It’ll be just a few minutes.”
Rick snapped his attention back to Jacks. “What am I doing in this crappy restaurant? They don’t even have bacon?”
“It’s happening, Rick.”
“What is?”
“Do you remember that report I wrote, the one I worked on for a whole year? I had you look it over.”
“The one called ‘Divided House’? Yeah, I remember it.”
“That’s what’s happening.”
Outwardly, Rick did not show his surprise, but inside he felt a new rush of adrenaline. Methodically, almost lazily, he grabbed a crusty, half-filled ketchup bottle and pushed it back and forth between his hands. He looked around the restaurant and studied the few customers that were there. Despite being clean, the restaurant was old and worn. The paint was peeling, the ceiling panels were bowing, and the fan blades were warped. Even the plastic plants seemed to be wilting. Somewhere behind him, he could hear a fly buzzing into a window. The repetitive smack of the insect against the glass seemed to amplify the feeling of dread.
“That’s not what the news is reporting—”
Jacks coughed into his hand. “You know as well as I do that the media has better actors than most movies. The news is nothing more than the Federal Government’s talking points.” His voice was cold and sharp. “Remember the Equal Speech Act? They told us it was to prevent income inequality and racism, but it ended—”
Rick put up his hands. “Easy….Jacks. You’re sure quick to get fired up nowadays.”
Jacks shook his head and clenched his jaw. “Of course, I am. The constitution is hanging by a thread. The system is falling apart and no one seems to care. California is done with negotiations. We’re about to be in a civil war. Words are at an end.…”
Another rush hit Rick in the chest. “What do you mean negotiations are done? Your report on Divided House was not about civil war; it was about factionism, about how bi-partisanship in America will eventually make legislation impossible to pass.”
“Damn, Rick,” Jacks said, “Didn’t you read the conclusion?”
“It got a little dry at the end.”
“The whole point is the end.”
“Save me the guilt trip and get to the point.”
Jacks leaned in closer. “It’s done. All negotiations have closed down.”
“How far are we from civil war?”
“Technically, we’re in civil war right now. The Western States have already stopped paying any sort of Federal taxes. They’ll be issuing an official Declaration of Separation within the next few weeks. And as soon as they do, the President is going to respond with ‘Peace Keepers’.”
“What? What States are we talking about?”
“They call themselves the UW—Undividable West, and you know the states I'm talking about: California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. But that’s not where the divisions end. Texas is also on the verge of breaking off, and several of the middle states are thinking the same thing.”
“Yeah, but none of them have an organized army. At best they could muster up a few thousand militia and national reservists. The civil war will end before it really begins.”
“I know, and that brings me to the reason you are here in a dingy restaurant that doesn’t even have bacon. We don’t know what has changed, but all of a sudden, they’re acting like they have all the cards. Negotiations were going fine; I thought we were going to reach a resolution a few months ago. The Federal Government was going to make several concessions of power, such as immigration reform, tax privileges, etc. and then, all of a sudden, they started acting as if we needed them more than they needed us. They demanded more—much more—complete economic autonomy.”
“So, what are they planning?”
“Whatever it is, it will destroy the United States—or at least, what’s left of it. Most of the states are betting on the end of the Federal Government, and they’re already drafting treaties and making coalitions between states. In a year, we will look more like the old European Union.”
“The European Union was a miserable failure—”
“Right now, it looks more like a bright future. The Federal Government is weak at best, and with its failure to respond to the LA Earthquake in California, no one has confidence in the government. After The Quake, California began to keep all of their information to themselves—including intelligence gathered by Federal Agents living in California. It was not long before they began to skim off Federal tax revenue, and start their own government agencies that held Federal powers.”
Rick scoffed. “The Federal Government bailed them out twice. And the only reason the government could not respond to the LA Earthquake any better than it did was because all their money was tied up in trying to save California’s
economy. How in the hell do they think they can manage their money any better without the Federal Government?”
“What they believe is irrelevant, but what they’re willing to do to achieve their belief is a whole different story.”
“And what is my role in all of this?”
“Same thing you were doing before you left. You still have your website?”
“How do you think I’m paying for this crappy breakfast?”
“What about—”
The waitress arrived, bringing with her two small plates of unappetizing food. “Can I get you anything else?”
Rick looked up to respond, but Jacks abruptly cut him off. “We’re good, thanks.”
Her face tightened into a smile and she left with a huff.
Rick turned to his factory-made eggs, poking them tentatively with a fork. “What about my website?”
“I thought we had more time, but just yesterday, we intercepted a transmission indicating that something big is going to happen—except, we still don’t know what. It said that ‘God will be released upon the Eastern United States.’”
Rick laughed. “God will be released? That’s an odd choice of words.”
“I need you to figure out what is going on and what changed their attitude—why the negotiations suddenly fell apart. They won. The Federal Government is shedding a lot of its authority, but something turned them arrogant. I need to know what it was. What do they have that they think gives them the advantage?”
“If they’re going to declare their independence within the next few weeks, then we’ve already lost.”
“The President doesn’t seem to think so. He thinks they’re bluffing and that they’ll back down as soon as he threatens them with economic sanctions…or musters up the Army. It’s a game of political chicken. In any case, the President thinks that he can stall the separation of the States long enough for us to figure out what is their ace in the hole. Whatever advantage they think they have must be taken away from them.”
“Jacks, I’m not part of the CIA anymore. That’s the beauty of leaving a job.”
“Rick, wake up,” Jacks hissed.
“No, you wake up,” Rick replied with just as much venom. “Everything you just told me is something I already told you would happen. I was the one that warned you years ago that we were going down this path. You were the one that refused to wake up. And even if you stop this disaster from happening, there will just be something else on the horizon. The car is already off the cliff, and no matter how hard anyone hits the breaks, no force can stop it from crashing into the ground. It’s not a question of if the Federal Government is going to collapse, but a matter of when. There are too many things in motion. Every world power eventually collapses. Why in the hell would anyone think that the United States is any different?”
“Think of what you’re saying: If the United States government collapses, there will be nothing left—nothing. We might be in the middle of the Perpetual Recession, but America has always been able to come back. We’ve always been able to recover.”
“Until the one time when we don’t….”
Jacks shook his head. “Your country needs your service, your government is asking for your help—”
“Do you even work for the government anymore, Jacks?”
The withered man looked taken aback. He rubbed his head and sat back in his chair, a look of surprise fixed to his face. “I’m fighting to keep the Constitution alive. I’m fighting to keep our country one nation. The end of three hundred years of US history could be determined in the next few months. And it’s not just the US that has a stake in this, but the entire world’s idea of liberty and freedom is in question. If we fail, the idea of liberty fails with us. The ‘American dream’ will be nothing more than a nightmare…” As Jacks’ words trailed off, so did his enthusiasm. It seemed that the more he talked, the dimmer his face became, like a flashlight with a draining battery.
Rick’s body stiffened. “I tried to help. You know I tried to change things. You know better than anyone how I tried to change things. Remember what I lost…remember…” Rick leaned back and folded his arms. “It’s done. It’s over. You can’t fight against the last hundred years of stupidity. We tried to change the course of history, but we were as effective as pissing on a forest fire.” He stood and pulled a few bills out of his wallet.
“Rick, please,” Jacks grabbed Rick’s arm. The hand was bony and rough, like a piece of leather left out in the sun. “Rick, please, I need your help.”
Rick swallowed hard and narrowed his eyes. No matter how much he tried to walk away, his feet were not able to react. A few tense moments passed. Rick lowered his shoulders. “Fine. I’ll look into it. But I can’t promise you much. I haven’t been using the website for more than making money lately. It’s going to take a while for me to establish my connections. How much time do we have?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“All right. I’ll do this for you, but you have to do something for me too.”
“Name it.”
“After you fail, and you will fail, I want you to stop your insane crusade.”
“I took an oath to serve my country. I can’t abandon—”
“We both did, but the country we swore to protect then, is not the same country that you’re protecting now. After you fail, I want you to stop playing the patriot and get prepared for whatever chaos we’ll soon find ourselves in.”
Rick left the restaurant without another word. Despite his calm demeanor, the conversation with Jacks had his heart racing. He placed the car in drive and pulled out onto the main road. He briefly contemplated stopping at a place that had Wi-Fi so he could immediately check his blog, but then quickly decided against it. Hardly anyone has free Wi-Fi anymore, and it’ll probably take just as long to find a connection as it would to drive home. Besides, what good can I do? Jacks is just grasping at straws. Despite his doubts, he felt a strong sense of urgency. If I speed, I should be able to make it back to the house before eight. I can start my research then. Rick pulled out his wallet and looked at the contents. He was down to his last ten-dollar bill. I better stop off at an ATM and pull out some cash—just in case I get pulled over.
SEVEN
Day 1
“You damned fool,” Marcus said, his voice low but lethal. “What do you mean, things are changing?”
“God has proven more ubiquitous than previously thought.”
“Enough with the blasted codes, what are you saying?”
“We’ve got to accelerate the schedule.”
Despite the harshness of Marcus’ voice, his tone was still reasoned and logical, like a psychologist who was just diagnosing a patient. “Most of our people are still on the East Coast, trying to distract everyone from the plan. You can’t accelerate things. You’ll lose half of the command staff. Do not stray from the plan, do you hear me?”
Marcus had slept little last night and awoken early. He was surprised he had slept at all, despite taking a mix of Ambien and alcohol. When morning came, coffee did little to ease the transition into the day.
“We’re all dead if we don’t,” said the voice over the phone.
“I don’t have time for extraction. If you kick this plan off too early, you endanger everything. You endanger me.”
“You are just one chess piece among many.”
Marcus shook his head, the veins of his neck pulsing with his quickened heartbeat. “Some chess pieces are more valuable than others—you would do well to remember that. Listen, Braxton, I’m at least a few hours from an airport, and it will be another six before I land. So you better not dare do anything before then. You need me.”
“Then, you better hurry. The sand is falling.”
Marcus continued to speak but soon realized that the line was dead. He cursed at his phone before he shoved it into his pocket. He went for his suitcase, throwing it onto the bed. As he began to push his possessions
inside, his Breitling watch caught on the zipper. In frustration, he pulled back and cursed again.
I don’t have time for this. This sent a palatable rage through his body. He grabbed his suitcase and threw it through the glass door, instantly turning it to shards. He spent a second more looking at the wreckage before he turned and fled out the door. Down the hall, he pushed the elevator button. Two seconds later, he decided it was moving too slowly. He spotted an emergency exit on the opposite side of the hall and sprinted towards it. A cleaning lady and cart appeared directly in front of him. He had already gained too much momentum to stop, and he crashed into her cart, sending small soaps and shampoos scattering across the floor.
Marcus wasted only two words on the cleaning lady before regaining his feet and continuing. He was able to make it to his BMW within another minute. He tried the door but it was locked.
“Where’s my driver?” Marcus said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. He shoved his hand into his pocket, digging out his phone. When he dialed for his driver, the phone went right to voicemail. Damn. He briefly contemplated running back for the extra set of car keys he had left in his room. There is no time.
He scanned his surroundings, spotting a red Prius that was just pulling into the parking lot. As the vehicle approached, Marcus stood in the road, his hand outstretched. The driver stopped, rolling down his window after some hesitation.
“Is everything all right?”
Marcus did not waste a breath of explanation. Instead, he reached inside, pulling the man out through the window in one swift motion. The man fought back a second too late, his legs creating a wedge in the door. With one quick blow to the neck, the man crumpled to the ground, his head hitting the pavement. Marcus opened the door and stepped inside, scrunching his nose as the smell of mildew overcame him. He was just getting accustomed to the new vehicle when the former driver appeared, a trail of blood dripping down his forehead.